


In Which Caleb Can Be Nice

by OLMXweathervane



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: But also shovel speech, M/M, Sort of Praise Kink, Sort of romantic, soft..., sort of sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 11:07:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20114101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OLMXweathervane/pseuds/OLMXweathervane
Summary: Beau has Fjord's back, and that means making sure he is not taken for granted.Caleb is perplexed, and Jester is very into all of this.





	In Which Caleb Can Be Nice

**Author's Note:**

> Appreciation and the affection for the widofjord server.  
Prompt was praise kink, and aw man, it's like daring Beau - WE GON TRY. xxxx
> 
> (Oh yeah also this is OpheliaLMX on another account. It's not like secret, just... a different filing cabinet.)

“We need to talk about this shit you’re getting up to with Fjord,” says Beauregard.

Despite his usually excellent survival instincts, Caleb’s hand twitches and he glances to the handle of his bedroom door just for a moment, imagining slamming it in Beauregard’s face.

Beau steps one foot forward preemptively to block the door as Jester peers around her arm, eyes worryingly alight with interest. Caleb shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He scratches his elbow uncomfortably.

“You are - ah. You are here to express your disapproval?” he observes. “Noted, now if you do not mind...”

Caleb raises a hand, gesturing towards the hallway and inviting them to leave. Beau narrows her eyes. Meanwhile, Jester isn’t even trying to be threatening. She is staring, mouth hanging open.

“Disapproval - what? No!” she manages after a moment, eyes twinkling. “You guys are the cutest thing I have ever heard of in my whole life Caleb.”

Caleb swallows, sceptical, and makes a point of standing in the centre of his doorway so neither of them can slip into his room, his personal space, without some degree of effort.

“The fact that Fjord has resolved to engage in an illicit affair with me is the cutest thing you have ever heard in your life,” he repeats flatly.

“_Yes!_” Jester responds immediately. She pauses for a moment, with a fiendish little grin. “Is it really super duper ‘illicit’?”

Beau growls under her breath and places her hands on her hips, hackles raised.

“Caleb,” says Jester from over Beauregard’s shoulder. She crouches to look through her arm. “Caleb, on a scale of one to ten how illicit is it?”

She bites her lip, eyes fixed on his face, and Caleb looks at Beau with alarm – but Beau has no sympathy.

“Ah...”

“Oh my god Beau they are having so much sex!” Jester squeals, and Caleb can feel his cheeks warming ever so slightly.

Rather than relaxing, this makes Beau purse her lips.

“See, this is what I mean,” she says. “This is what I’m… afraid of.”

She fixes Caleb with a firm look, and he runs a hand through his hair uncertainly.

“Beauregard...”

“Don’t take this the wrong way but you have the emotional sophistication of an enraged mudcrab.”

Caleb blinks four times.

“_Entshuldigung,” _he says finally. “Ah – Beauregard, what do you-?”

“I’m Fjord’s _friend_,” says Beau firmly, stamping one foot to the ground. “You’re going to mess up his head!”

“Yeah!” says Jester, surprisingly sincere and suddenly fierce. “I’m pretty sure he likes you very much and if you hurt him...” she trails off, frowning and shaking one clenched, blue fist, and it’s surprisingly effective. It helps that, just objectively, she could do some serious damage if she decided to knock his block off.

Still. Caleb is not easy to intimidate.

“I beg your pardon...” he says slowly.

“We don’t want to have to fuck your shit up, that’s all we’re saying,” says Beau, cracking her left-hand knuckles on her right palm. “If you can’t be nice-”

“I can be nice,” Caleb interrupts defensively, straightening his back.

“I don’t think you know _how _nice you have to be to convince us...” says Jester in a low, growling voice.

Caleb opens his mouth but then closes it again.

“Is… that innuendo, or…?”

He jumps violently as Beau smacks against the door frame with one palm.

“_No_,” she says forcefully. “You can’t just mess around. You can’t fucking take this one for granted.”

Caleb furrows his brow; despite himself, he can feel his own hackles raising.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You have to like him,” says Jester.

“You have to fucking - appreciate his qualities,” says Beau. She pauses, before adding quickly. “And not just, like, his ass or whatever.”

“His _eyes_,” Jester agrees.

“His… heart,” Beau adds, clearly uncomfortable.

Caleb thins his lips, and steps forward slightly.

Fine then.

“Do you think I do not appreciate his eyes?” he asks in a low voice. “Do you think I don’t think about them? Expressive, and… radiant. Like sunlight reflected through amber.”

Beau seems uncertain, and Jester grabs onto her shoulder with both hands, looking at Caleb.

“Do you think I do not appreciate his heart?” Caleb asks just as darkly. “His brave, resilient, aching heart. _Ja meine freund_, I appreciate his heart.”

“Oh, Caleb,” Jester whispers under her breath.

“Do you think I do not dream of his hands?” Caleb asks. He takes a half step forward, and Beau stiffens, visibly swallowing. “Warm. Rough, but _nicht_ – not ever cruel. Do you think I would not happily spend all of my time kissing each of his fingertips?”

“This is a weird energy,” says Beau, but Caleb can hear the discomfort in her voice.

“Do you think I do not appreciate how his body arches as he wields a sword?” Caleb asks. “Or how his spine arches when he stretches first thing in the morning when his eyes are still bleary from sleep?”

Jester’s cheeks flush faintly purple, but she looks enchanted.

“Beau you know, that is a good point. He’s all...” She kind of twists to the side, half impersonating the way Fjord looks when he raises both arms and twists his hips to work out the kinks in his back in the morning.

“Fjord is a good, true man,” says Caleb, keeping his gaze fixed upon Beauregard. “Do you think I would lead him on if I did not truly appreciate the person that he is? What do you take me for, Beauregard?”

Beau, now looking very uncomfortable and faintly nauseated, glances back at Jester. Jester is no help though.

“Do you want to marry him one day?” she asks instead, seemingly entranced.

Caleb curls his lip.

“Of course not,” he mutters. For a moment Beau’s ire seems to have found fuel once more, before Caleb adds, “I want him to be safe, and stable, and happy; he can do better.”

“No, Caleb!” Jester whispers.

There is an awkward moment of quiet.

Well, awkward for Beau, anyway, with Jester charmed on one side and Caleb grimly determined on the other.

“Does he know?” Beau asks finally. “Because you’re still being shitty if he doesn’t know.”

Caleb shrugs, because he’s not actually sure. It’s probably obvious though, he guesses.

“I make no secret,” he says, deliberately vague.

Clearly, this is not the answer Beauregard expects.

“Really?” she asks, though it does not sound like a question.

Caleb raises an eyebrow daringly.

“So if I went and said, ‘oh, hey, Fjord, Caleb dreams about fucking – kissing your fingers or whatever.’ He wouldn’t be surprised?”

Caleb tilts his head to the side slightly.

“To be fair Beauregard that would be a very strange thing for you to say to anyone...”

“That would be weird,” Jester agrees. She pauses for a moment, as her enthusiasm brims over and she claps her hands. “But see? I was right! Caleb loves Fjord!” Jester squeals. “He loves him so much!”

Caleb staresr at Beau, daring her to call him a dangerous fraud.

“I am not ‘fucking taking this one for granted’, Beauregard.”

“See?” Jester pushes, poking at Beau’s side.

Beau crosses her arms and huffs.

“Ew,” she finally admits, irritable.

“Do you want to hear about my desire to undress him?” Caleb asks. “Do you want to know what his neck tastes-”

“_No_, fuck,” Beau interrupts, even as Jester says,

“Yeah, okay!”

Beau looks over her shoulder at Jester with distaste.

“I mean, no Caleb, of course not,” says Jester unconvincingly. “That’s probably like, personal or something...”

“Are you sure?” asks Caleb. He steps ever so slightly forward again, and this time Beau actually steps back. “Because his hair is softer than it looks, and just long enough that your fingers can get tangled...”

He twists his hand around, half imitating the motion.

“Fuck, no,” says Beau.

Something in her seems… relieved though. It warms Caleb’s heart actually, to know that she cares, even as he desperately wishes to end this conversation before his own resolve runs out.

“Beauregard I just bought parchment and ink for the first time in weeks, I am quite busy,” he says. “Was that all?”

Beau huffs.

“Yeah, fine, I just...” she hesitates.

“I know,” says Caleb – generously, if he does say so himself.

There is an awkward moment of silence and mutual understanding before, without another word, Beau turns and strides away very quickly.

“You should tell him, Caleb,” says Jester quietly.

She hesitates, before leaning forward to kiss Caleb’s nose.

Luckily, he doesn’t need to think of a response, because then she is running after Beau.

“See?” Jester calls. “Beau. BEAU, I told you!”

Caleb lets a steady breath out. Well, that is that then.

He rubs his hands over his upper arms.

Caleb closes the door, and glances over to Fjord, who is standing with his back pressed against the wall, his mouth slightly open.

Caleb clears his throat, but he can’t really think of what to say. Fjord licks his lips slowly and Caleb looks down to avoid following the movement with his gaze. He imagines he sees a slight sparkle to Fjord’s own eyes, and – oh, hopefully that is not a bad thing.

“Caleb,” says Fjord finally, after another heavy moment.

Caleb scratches his wrist warily.

“Where in the bloody… Caleb, where did that come from?”

Caleb shrugs, though he is distracted by Fjord’s voice. He’s still not used to the accent.

“Stating the obvious, I know, but it did work,” he mutters. He forces a smile of almost amusement. “At least I did not need to start talking about your thighs, or-”

He barely gets the chance to grunt as he Fjord steps forward, and presses a hungry, not very elegant kiss to his mouth. It takes Caleb a moment before he can even respond. But when he does, he surges forward, wrapping his arms around Fjord’s waist to rest his palms against the warm base of the other man’s spine.

Instantly, he can feel Fjord sort of melt against him. He licks against Fjord’s bottom lip, and is rewarded with a muffled little whine.

Caleb pulls back, looking up at Fjord, curious. He is smiling. Just a bit, but he is.

Fjord looks far more wrecked than he should be, actually, from just one little kiss.

Flushed. Even dazed.

“Do you know that you are… you are a treat for me?” Caleb asks experimentally. “Do you know that this here...” He raises one hand, to run his fingers along the Fjord’s hip, “I dream about this.”

He watches Fjord’s neck as he swallows. Caleb stands on his tip toes, and presses his lips against Fjord’s throat, and he thinks he might be able to hear the racing heartbeat.

That’s curious. Curious and intriguing.

“I am lucky for every part of you I get to touch,” Caleb says quietly against Fjord’s throat. It honestly feels dumb to hear his own voice going on, but under his skin is a thrill of excitement as Fjord presses his hands to each side of Caleb’s jaw and they are actually, slightly, shaking.

“I’ll ask Beau t-to lay off if you would like,” says Fjord under his breath.

Caleb licks along the line of his jaw, and finds his pulse point with the tip of his tongue. It’s racing. Still racing.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs, and kisses it gently. “I will not run out of things to talk about, if necessarily. Do not – ah, do not let that be a concern.. There are many things I find pleasing about you...” Caleb breathes against Fjord’s neck, and presses a small kiss under his ear, and then another, behind that. “I did not mention that ticklish spot, on the back of your neck...”

Fjord gives a breathless little laugh, and Caleb reaches up with one hand, pressing the pads of his fingers against Fjord’s lips. With the other, he reaches down, to rub his palm softly against the pleasingly prominent bulge in the front of the other man’s britches.

“Quiet,” Caleb murmurs. He swallows. Bites his lip. “Now, ah…”

Caleb rubs his hand again, just lightly, and amazingly, he feels Fjord’s forehead fall to his shoulder with a soft grunt.

“Take off your clothes, Fjord, I am not done,” he murmurs. “I have barely scratched the surface.”


End file.
